Copyright & Credit Information

IDEA is a free resource for personal research but retains copyright on the archive’s files and other information contained herein. You may use the archive as such without special permission. However, you may not copy the majority of text of any single page or distribute any sound files, or portion thereof, without the express written consent of IDEA and the payment of a fee appropriate to the intended use.

The following examples are provided as a guide:

• • Consistent with fair-use law, you may cite the URL of an IDEA sample in any book, article, paper, training manual, or lecture, etc., without special permission (e.g., https://www.dialectsarchive.com/england-8), though you may not include a copy or re-recording of the complete sound file, or portion thereof, without special permission and the payment of an appropriate fee. For information on the doctrine of fair use, please see the U.S. Copyright Office’s discussion of the topic at https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html.
  • Also consistent with fair-use law, you may transcribe and quote briefly from IDEA’s text files in books, articles, papers, training materials, or lectures, without special permission but with proper citation, as required by law. However, you may not include any portion of the native sound files without special permission. If you wish us to provide those sound files or the complete text of specific samples, please contact us with full details of your needs. A permissions fee will be assessed, appropriate to your intended use of the files, but sufficient only to cover our administrative costs in the case of non-commercial, academic projects. At our discretion, we may waive fees entirely.
  • You may play an IDEA recording or text file in a lecture, class, training session, or workshop directly from the internet, or students/clients may do so from their own individual internet-connected terminals without obtaining special permission. But distributing copies of files by any other means requires special permission and the payment of an appropriate fee. If you wish to request special permission or are in doubt about whether your intended use requires it, please e-mail the director, Paul Meier, at director@dialectsarchive.com.

It is fully expected that actors, writers, directors, and others will make use of the archive for research in film and stage productions, though it is requested, as a courtesy, that such use of the archive be acknowledged in the play bill of a theatre production or in the closing credits of a television or feature film as follows:

Special thanks to IDEA (International Dialects of English Archive)